Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Quotes on Socialism

Quotes can help to simplify a complicated subject when you are trying to get across a point to someone who needs help understanding a philisophical difference of opinion.

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.Alexis de Tocqueville

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."Winston Churchill

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."Winston Churchill

"First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by the government, regardless of individual choice."Benjamin Tucker

"In practice, socialism didn't work. But socialism could never have worked because it is based on false premises about human psychology and society, and gross ignorance of human economy."David Horowitz

"No one should suffer from the great delusion that any form of communism or socialism which promotes the dictatorship of the few instead of the initiative of the millions can produce a happier or more prosperous society."Charles E. Wilson

"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."-- Voltaire

"Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good."-- Ayn Rand

"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.'"-- Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."-- C.S. Lewis

"You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift.You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.You cannot establish security on borrowed money.You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."-- Rev. William J. H. Boetcker*

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Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been ratified by the mere facts. —G. K. Chesterson